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Notes About The Poem

Written 1st of October, 2026 submitted to Autumn Flowers Poetry Contest sponsored by Anthony Bianco

Border flora and bird inspired by Heathcote sandstone heath: Old Man Banksia (Banksia serrata), Willow-leaved Crowea (Crowea saligna), Common Correa (Correa reflexa), local grevilleas including Silky Grevillea (Grevillea sericea), and New Holland Honeyeater (Phylidonyris novaehollandiae).

Genoplesium occiduum (formally described as Corunastylis occidua), the Hills or Dark Midge Orchid, is a small deciduous terrestrial orchid, 8–25 cm tall. Following late-summer and autumn rain, it produces a slender spike of 6–30 non-resupinate flowers, each only 3.5–4 mm across.

An Autumn Midge


While trees lift bright yellow combs  
to attract squabbling honeyeaters,  
lower bushes open bells and stars.  

The ground, however, keeps time differently.  
The first rain has entered dry sand,  
but nothing has confessed itself.  

For many weeks, we return  
to the known places,  
two people reading grass at ankle height.  

We look for leaves  
round to the touch  
among the flat blades of grass.  

Then, at last, a flower spike  
begins its small ascent,  
a dark seam lifting through the leaf.  

That is enough.  
We leave the certainty of known ground  
and search the wider heath.  

The flowering shrubs are loud with wings;  
at our feet, the Autumn Midge  
gathers its darker wings from grass.  

Small plum-coloured flowers,  
each with a dark, pendulous tongue,  
grouped no larger than a thumbnail.  

One camera.  
A photograph. A report sent on  
to the researchers.  

We leave the place unspoken,  
and the orchid where it rose,  
hidden in the grass.

autumndarkflowerrainfree verse

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